No one is happy about the Pentagon's new press policy. Earlier this week, media outlets spanning the political spectrum almost universally declined to sign on to a memorandum issued by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth: It would require defense reporters to promise that they will not seek to obtain unauthorized information.

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"Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified," the memorandum states.

Hegseth is, of course, within his rights to forbid his own employees from leaking stories to journalists, to the extent that's possible. Federal officials who leak classified

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